Читать книгу This Above All - Eric Knight - Страница 13

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Young Hamish saw his brother across the brightly lighted lobby of the hotel. Willfred was taking his hat from the check-girl and inspecting it fore and aft as if he would find, with great joy, that it wasn’t his own.

Hamish started away, hesitated, and went back. Willfred saw him.

“Hamish!”

“Hello, Willfred.”

The older brother turned to the two men with him. Hamish heard him mentioning their names perfunctorily. Then the four stood in a moment of indecision.

“I’ll be getting along,” Hamish said.

“No—er ...”

Willfred turned to the others.

“I think we’ve covered everything then, haven’t we?”

He did not wait for an answer. He put his hand on Hamish’s shoulder.

“Let’s pop in the bar.”

“But if you’re busy, Will?”

“No, we ironed it all out at dinner.”

He didn’t say what had been ironed out. He propelled Hamish down the steps to the bar, and they found a place at the high counter. The pre-theater rush was in full tide. The people crowded politely in the small space.

“Scotch?”

“Yes.”

“Two.”

They watched until the drinks came.

“Three cheers!”

“Merry-merry!”

Willfred looked around, happily.

“Quite a crowd.”

“Yes.”

“What keeps you in so late?”

“Oh ...”

Hamish spread his hands and lifted his shoulders.

“Oh, don’t let me pry,” Willfred laughed.

“You’re not prying. In fact, I was just playing with the idea of going to the cinema. That’s all.”

“Good God, Hamish, what a thing to do! When a man starts going to cinemas, it’s an admission of some malaise—loneliness, welt-schmerz—some escapism.” Willfred said it sententiously.

Hamish, looking up, caught his brother watching him in the mirror behind the bar. As if to defend himself Hamish lifted his glass in a salute, at the same moment.

But Willfred plunged on into his theme.

“Look here, Hamish. What about Iris?”

“Iris? What about her? Oh, you mean being down at Leaford. It’ll work itself out.”

He thought: I knew that’s what he brought me down here for. Iris.

Willfred said: “I’m not trying to pry, Hamish. It’s merely that Leaford isn’t the best place to have the youngsters.”

Quick switch, Hamish thought. But you’ll wear me down and get back to it before we’re through. And I don’t know about Iris myself. My God, I wish I did know.

He said: “Is Leaford really bad?”

Willfred coughed and then picked up a handful of salted nuts. He ate one meticulously, and lowered his voice.

“It—er—looks as if it might be not quite the best place. Probably have to make it a solely military area before we’re through, I hear. Nothing definite—you understand how I mean this. Under the rose, and not a word. But it’s—being considered.”

Hamish pulled the theme to generalities smoothly.

“You mean it looks bad for us?”

“Well—you can draw the conclusion for yourself. There he is, twenty miles away. He’s certainly on our front doorstep. Of course, we’re shooting down scores of his planes. But the thing is, he can afford to lose planes, we can’t. If he can keep it up, we’re blinded. And then it’ll be—what did they say in the last war? Il n’y a plus for us.”

“You mean—invasion?”

“Yes.”

“But—you’re not using that for a political scare, you chaps?”

Willfred smiled benignly, and lowered his voice. “Hamish, there’s heads been toppled recently, and there’ll be lots more heads to topple, because their owners have been wrong. Well, I don’t intend to be wrong. This war—it means our chance. I don’t intend to be wrong. I accept invasion as a near-sure probability.”

“Good God, no!”

“Good God, yes. You know, there’s no special ordinance handed down from heaven that Britain mustn’t be invaded. It has been done, quite frequently. Y’know—Caesar, Hengist, Horsa, William—Romans, Norse, Danes, Vikings, Normans and so on.”

“I suppose so.”

“Well, I just pass it on to you—personally, of course. The South Coast isn’t going to be healthy. And if I had any relatives there, I’d get them cleared out now. You should insist that Iris ...”

“It’s a bit difficult. You see, she won’t come to London, because she thinks it won’t be safe. And her father’s near a steel works. And she won’t ...”

Willfred nodded. He knew the story, but he listened again. One could always check one report against another.

“It’s all silly, her quarrel with father,” Willfred said. “You know what it is, don’t you?”

“Of course. Some woman of his earlier days, and he has the decency to see she doesn’t go destitute in her old age. And that’s father’s kept woman! I’ve told Iris, but ...”

Willfred laughed.

“If she could see her. She’s a plump old thing. Practically senile. Lives way out on the Millings Road.”

Hamish stared at Willfred.

“Oh, I looked into it,” Willfred laughed. “You know, quietly and on my own. She’s—well, like an old retired servant. He used to drop in to see her once in a while—but as far as its meaning anything—you know, physically—there’s been nothing to that for the last twenty-five years.”

“Well, whatever it is,” Hamish said, “I can’t see anything sinful about it. Iris is—pretty strait-laced, you know. But—I can see father’s side. What could he do? Couldn’t chuck the old girl out into the workhouse. I give him that.”

“Of course. And it doesn’t cost him above three hundred a year,” Willfred laughed. “Oh, I looked into it.”

Hamish cupped his hands about the glass.

“You know, he’s getting along,” Willfred said. “Your youngsters would do him no end of good. He just dotes on them. Of course, there’s Roger’s girl—but she’s a girl, after all. And it’s boys—grandsons. You know, there’s a time in life when suddenly people seem to want children again—and it’s way past their own procreative age. He’s at it now. Your youngsters’d give him some point in life.”

“He’s got a point in life right now—getting into the service.”

“No, he thinks that’s it, Hamish. But ...”

Willfred lifted his shoulders.

“They won’t take him?” Hamish asked.

“Well, he’s seeing Bullyer. Bullyer can’t help him. Bullyer can’t help himself—not after that Dunkirk mess. Condout—between you and me—is the man. But he wouldn’t have any real use for father. I sent out a feeler. Oh, he could get something—local camp command or training depot. But not a real command.”

Hamish thought suddenly of his father, sitting in offices, waiting appointments that always seemed to be deferred. He got down from the stool.

“It’s hell,” he said. “Wanting to go and not being able to. It must be a very private sort of hell.”

Willfred got down and followed him. They went to the lobby and out to the street. Without speaking, they turned together and walked along. The blackout kept the city center fairly free from crowds. Their feet sounded on the pavement.

“You can’t imagine anything happening—to Old London,” Hamish said, moodily.

“Yes, you can’t imagine anything fairly well established being disrupted,” Willfred said. “It’s so in all life. Now marriage ...”

Hamish dodged the opening.

“Don’t tell me you’re thinking of adding marriage to your other successes.”

“I wasn’t thinking about me. I was thinking about you.”

Their feet fell in a slow march.

“What about Iris, Hamish?”

“What about her?”

“Well, the whole business. You see, when a chap and his wife start living at distances—it’s going for a break. It’s natural. Marriage, I’ve found, is habit-forming. Some chaps—like me and like Prentiss Saintby—we never get infected ...”

“Oh, how’s Saintby getting along in the States? Have you heard anything?”

“No.” Willfred went back to his theme. “But other chaps, once inoculated—they get used to phases of it.”

“Oh, don’t worry.”

“I don’t worry, Hamish. But you’re my brother. And I see the signs. Iris staying away. You ...”

“There’s a taxi,” Hamish said.

He whistled, and the car came over through the moon dusk. He stood by the door.

“Can I drop you, Willfred?”

“No, I’ve still got another conference. Keeps us going these days.”

“I suppose so. Well, good night.”

“Good night—and ...”

Hamish smiled in the darkness.

“Don’t worry, Willfred,” he said. “However I solve it—I’ll do it very decently.”

“That’s true,” Willfred said, crisply. “That’s the very comforting thing about your type, Hamish. We can always depend upon you to do everything in such a decent way. Rather routine—but very decent.”

Willfred smiled as the taxi ground away.